I know, I know. It has been a criminally long time since I last updated. Things got a bit crazy but the main reason I had was a mixture of laziness and getting completely distracted by another big writing project. That's done (or at least as done as it can get for now) and I'm turning my attentions back to this now as I could never actually get this story out of my head. I will pull my finger out and try and finish this, I promise.

Chapter 6

Knuckles clenched the arms of the bloodstained wooden chair. Teeth pressed together in a skullish grimace of utter agony. Between them a sound issued, a strangled scream of pain that barely sounded like a noise a human being could make.

"Enough."

The pain receded as the hot poker that was scoring into the flesh of Corvo Attano was drawn back. The disgraced Lord Protector slumped forwards, gasping and shuddering as he heaved for breath, lank and unwashed hair falling about the sides of his head.

"Corvo, Corvo," Hiram Burrows said, Lord Regent stood by the chair. He did not hold the poker; that honour was held by the huge, hulking thug of a man next to him, the sadistic mute who was leering at Corvo with his instrument of torment held ready. "You know that there's a way out of this, don't you? Just sign the confession, and the torture will stop. It won't save you from the executioner, of course, but wouldn't you rather spend your last days without suffering?"

Corvo managed to raise his head, and spat. Grimacing in distaste, Burrows wiped away the bloodied spittle that had struck him square on his hawkish nose, but as the torturer stepped forward with the poker raised the Lord Regent shook his head.

"That will be enough for today," he said. "Have the guards escort Corvo back to his cell. Perhaps giving him a little time to think things through on his own will help him come to the right decision."

Corvo was unconscious on his journey back to his cell, dragged by a pair of guards. When he came to, he was lying on the cold stone floor, a rat sniffing curiously near his eyes. Seeing his eyelids flicker into wakefulness, the creature squeaked in alarm and fled, scuttling away, and with deliberate care, Corvo pushed himself to his feet.

The movement was exhausting, and he rested with one hand supporting him against the cell wall, muscles aflame with pain. The old torture scars ached, the new raw and tender. He slumped onto the bunk that hung from one wall, breaths shuddering, and glanced over at the door as he heard the flap in it slide open a loaf of bread on a metal tray sliding through.

He grabbed it and ate in the frenzy of something bestial, clawing hunks off and chewing. Food was a precious commodity and he took advantage of this bounty now, knowing full well that the next meal may not arrive for some time. The staleness of the loaf was irrelevant, the sheer ferocity of consumption overcoming its toughness.

It was after he had finished eating that he saw the note and the key that had been left on the tray.

"Corvo,

Who we are is irrelevant right now. Just know that we have faith in you.

Here is the key to your cell. Once you're out, head forthe prison's Interrogation Room. Take the explosive there and plant it on the outer door. When the bomb goes off, run. Make forthe riverand lose yourself in thesewers. You'll find some useful gear stashed there.

One of the prisonguardswill leave aweaponjust outside your cell.

And good luck. We need you alive and well for what's to come.

―A friend."

There were a million and one questions to ask about this note, countless risks in what was suggested and a recommended course that bordered on utter insanity, but there was only one alternative to what this note asked, and that was to stay here and die.

With a click, the door was unlocked. For the first time in months, Corvo felt like he had made a tangible step towards vengeance.

The corridor beyond Corvo's door was devoid of life, and on a table opposite the cell, a single blade gleamed. There was nothing special about it, a simple mass-produced weapon designed for the Watch of unexceptional craftsmanship, but Corvo took it, testing its balance. It felt heavy, though that could have been a result of his mauled muscles rather than of manufacture. In his current state, Corvo doubted he could survive a swordfight; even walking was an effort.

One hand on the wall for support, the other gripping the hilt of the blade, Corvo limped along the bare concrete passageway. The walls were spaced with thick steel doors, and above the distant doorway leading out of the room was the sign 'MAXIMUM SECURITY WING'.

Leaning through the doorway, Corvo swept his gaze left and right, trying to keep as much of his profile concealed as possible. There was another corridor, and he pulled back as he saw a pair of guards approaching, ducking behind the doorway. Their footsteps echoed towards him, and he pressed himself into the wall, desperately hoping they would pass.

"You going to Corvo's execution next week?" he heard one of the guards asked.

"Nah, got a shift then. Pity, really; wanted to see that bastard swing."

"Don't blame you. I reckon if that son of a bitch hadn't done the Empress in then the city wouldn't be in this mess."

"Hey, don't let anyone catch you saying that. Could be taken as treason."

"Oh come on, you know what I meant," one of the guards protested. The sound of their boots reached the doorway and Corvo pressed himself in, silently praying for them to pass.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone," the other said. A pair of shadows appeared on the floor beyond the doorframe, silhouettes struck stark by the prison's strip-lighting. Corvo's eyes fixed on them, hand gripping the hilt of his sword.

"Good." The shadows passed. The tension began to sap from Corvo's muscles. "Means I can carry on working as Red Jenny's mole without risking my mission."

The other guard snorted. Judging from the echo of the noise, they had rounded the other corner. Peering out, Corvo surveyed the scene, a square corridor of grey, unpainted concrete, lit by weak sunlight that filtered through barred skylights.

He knew the route to the interrogation chamber, had travelled it enough times, manacled and flanked by a pair of guards. Now, as he made his way to it on his own two feet, eyes and ears wary for the sounds of any approaching footsteps, he could feel a sense of giddy elation swelling in his chest. His first chance of freedom, his first hope in six months, had finally come. Corvo was professional enough to not let his guard down, not now when an encounter with a single watchman could mean either his death or re-imprisonment, but he allowed himself a grin of anticipation.

One hand on the wall, ignoring the ache such exertion caused, Corvo moved. He kept to the shadows, staying low and quiet and quick as he could go and did his best to ignore the pain. One of the corridors he passed by was lined with cells, but the inhabitants within ignored him or did not see him. Some slept, some paced and paced and turned their ten feet of room into a marathon, a few simply twitched and mumbled incoherence. Beyond them, around the corner of an atrium chamber that formed a crossroads between two cell corridors and a courtyard, was the interrogation room.

With a grunt of effort, Corvo swung the heavy steel portal open, door creaking as he strained it into motion. He pushed it shut behind him, leaning his back against it in order to make it swing, and lay against it panting. It took several minutes for him to regain his breath, and as he limped to his feet he gave a grimace of distaste as he saw the interrogation chair. Too many memories of that thing, sessions of torture presided over by Hirram Burrows. Even now he watched Corvo, imperious and regal from the portrait that occupied the far wall. He skirted the room's perimeter, keeping as far from the chair as possible, and as he reached the picture, the disgraced Royal Protector heaved his blade up and let it fall across the canvas, slashing through the Lord Regent's torso.

One day.

Combing the room, he finally found the promised explosive in a back room. It was simple, crude thing, a canister of whale oil attached to a pair of magnets and a timer made from a repurposed pocket watch, but it would do. Bomb in one hand, stolen blade in the other, Corvo limped to the interrogation chamber's door once more.

He knew from the tour of the prison that he taken in his time as Lord Protector that the yard was not far from Coldridge's main entrance .The place was on an island, surrounded by the Wrenhaven and linked by drawbridge to Dunwall Tower, and all it would take was one dive to reach the water and from there, the sewers.

Peering around the doorframe that lead down to the yard, Corvo shrank back as he spotted a pair of guards within, a third on the small stairwell that lead towards Coldridge's entrance. The two in the centre were bickering about something, and with a care that was glacial in its slowness, Corvo looked around the corner once more.

On his original tour, when the conditions at Coldridge were more humane, the yard had been used for exercising prisoners daily, a space of flat dirt that allowed men to walk more than just a few feet from one end of their cell to the other. Yard trips had, along with half-decent rations, been one of the things Burrows had cut, and it seemed that the space had been turned over to storage. It was occupied by bales of wiring, barriers and even a few inactive arc pylons leaning against one wall, plentiful cover to hide behind.

"Fine," one of the guards said. "I'll go check on it now. Don't know what the big deal is."

He turned towards the doorway where Corvo was concealed, and the escapee shrank back, eyes darting for a place to hide. He could try dashing to the door of the interrogation room, sprint and somehow hope he would not get caught as he strained to get it open. No, not there, somewhere else, somewhere to hide, anywhere. He pressed himself harder against the wall, as if willing himself to merge with the brutal concrete that made up Coldridge Prison, and as the guard emerged past the doorframe, out of options, he dropped bomb and sword and sprang.

His right arm wrapped across the man's throat, left gripping his wrist to give him more strength. With a quiet grunt of effort Corvo wrenched, hurling himself and his quarry to the ground and out of the yard's sight. He landed atop the guard, the man struggling against the grip of Corvo's chokehold, flailing and shoving as the Serkonan held on with a grim, savage determination. The man should have been subdued by now, unconscious and docile, but while the hold was right Corvo's savaged and atrophied muscles could not gather the strength needed to do the work quickly.

The guard kicked, boot knocking against Corvo's ankles and bruising as he tried to break free, arms flailing. A stray swipe jarred against the eye of the former Royal Protector, pain flaring and lid squeezing shut, Corvo's mouth a snarling rictus of effort and pain. His muscles burned, their grip determined but weak, abused physique exerting itself to its limits in an effort to subdue this one man.

Finally, the struggles stopped, the guards eyes rolling back in his sockets, his grunts of effort replaced by a gentle snoring. Corvo lay next to him, arm still around his throat, amazed and exhausted by his tiny victory. He was giddy from the exertion, bloodied from where old torture wounds had opened up once more. As he glanced towards the fallen sword, and he wondered silently why he had not just killed the man.

Stowing sword and bomb out of sight, Corvo dragged the unconscious man into the interrogation room, pulling with what was left of his strength. When that task was done, after Corvo had gasped back what energy he could, he retrieved his possessions, looping the bomb across his ragged prison shirt with the guard's stolen belt and glanced into the yard.

The remaining guard was leaning against a barrier and smoking, half-heartedly surveying the storage space with apathetic eyes. The one who had been stood at the end was gone, disappeared somewhere inside.

Avoiding the man watching the yard was easy, Corvo ducking under the rail of stairwell that lead down into it, hunched verminous behind the detritus that littered the expanse and reaching the other end in a few scurrying, limping moments. One furtive eye on the bored guard, Corvo clambered onto the far stairwell, ducked behind the doorway and cast around the room he had entered. An irregular trail of sporadic red dots followed him from where he reopened wounds bled.

It was blessedly empty, a wide corridor with a guard's booth at the far end. There was a guard there, misted behind the toughened glass, feet up on his desk and a newspaper opened in front of him. This was where the prisoners were brought in, processed and sent to their assigned cells. Freedom was less than fifty feet away, and Corvo was kept from it by a pair of heavy steel doors, placed one after the other.

Shuffling into the shadows, he surveyed the situation the best he could. The first set of doors could be blasted open by his bomb, but that would mean he would have no means to breach the second. After that desperate, mad struggle with the first guard, he did not think he could overpower this other man and open the door with the controls that was likely located at his desk, but he could not see a means to get past the portal without it. His gaze flicked upwards, to the tract of pipes that ran along the ceiling, towards the door and over the empty space above it. Why open it or break through it when he could simply go over it?

There was a ledge, a recess into the wall which Corvo could lever himself up. With a final glance at the guard, still occupied by his news sheet, and a check for any more approaching watchmen, he climbed, sword slung across his back and held in place by the stolen belt. He was a good climber, feet finding whatever niches they could in smaller pipes and wiring, straining with the effort of hauling himself up. If there was one benefit to the near-starvation he had lived off for the last six months, it meant that he had less weight to haul.

He stood on top of the ledge's lip with shaking limbs, looking for the next way up. In the distance was the sounds of approaching footsteps, and Corvo grabbed the piping, looping his arms around its top, fingers gripping what they could. Tugging with what was left of his strength, he pulled, legs scrambling against the wall as a patrolling guard approached, Corvo grimacing with effort as he managed to scramble up to the top of the pipe with burning muscles.

A guard passed below him, and Corvo lay flat as he walked by, too exhausted to move just yet. He was well concealed, hidden in shadow and blocked from view by the pipes, and he began the slow, methodical crawl forwards. Below him, there was a curious grunt, and Corvo glanced down to see the guards crouching by a small, reddish-brown spot that discoloured the ground.

"What is that?" he heard the man mutter to himself. Poking at it, the guard frowned at the sticky residue that clung to his finger. "What in the void...blood?"

Corvo saw him cast around, and spot another drop not far away. The former Royal Protector wasted no more time, beginning his crawl in earnest, moving as fast as he dared. He checked that the bomb and the sword were secured, would not strike the piping and betray him with noise, inching along and ignoring the sharp metal corners and uncomfortable ridges that rose from the piping and tugged at his skin.

The guard stopped at the ledge Corvo had climbed, which he had unwittingly scuffed with a smear of his own blood. He looked over it, peering at the unexpected stain, before he turned around and called; "Harrow, get your ass out of this chair and come take a look at this."

"What?" the other guard, Harrow asked as Corvo crawled onwards with grim determination.

"Got some weird marks over here," the other guard said.

"You got me out here for a few ratshit stains? Quit wasting my time."

"I think they're bloodstains."

There was a moment's quiet and Corvo imagined that the other guard was peering at the mark he had left.

"You might be right."

Corvo crossed the boundary over the first gate, crawling, crawling, close now, he could see the second door. There was no way of going over it this time, but that was what the bomb was for.

"Well give me a hand up there, why don't you? I want to know what's left these. Or who."

Corvo glanced down; he was above an atrium, a pair of guards stationed below him. Their attention was focussed on the inner door, and one of them called; "What in the void are you two on about?"

"We've found something funny." Corvo crawled forwards, loosing the bomb. He couldn't climb down and plant it, not without a fight he couldn't hope to win, but he had a plan, something that might buy him time.

"Ahuh?" one of the guards below Corvo asked. He glanced down, saw they were both looking in the direction of their colleagues.

"Yeah, 'ahuh'. You mind taking a look up above you, we think there might be something in the pipes above you."

"Oh piss off, I'm not hunting rats for you."

There was a clunk behind them as, holding it in place by the leather belt, Corvo swung the bomb down and affixed it to the door. The two guards got a look at the door, backing away as they recognised the soft turquoise glow of whale oil, and the timer detonated.

They were thrown back by the blast, hurled away to land splayed and groaning. Corvo was sheltered from the explosion by the piping, but something holding it in place was jolted by the detonation and, weakened and weighed down by the Royal Protector, it sagged and bent down, depositing him on the ground. He staggered upright. In the prison, there was the sound of confused shouting and the wolfhound howl of a klaxon. The drawbridge that connected Coldridge to Dunwall Tower was rising, and below Corvo was water. On the far side, a beach and a small cliff face that rose to Dunwall Tower; he could see a grate set into it, his way out.

"Stop!" someone called, and there was the bark of a oil-lock pistol, a bullet splitting air just over Corvo's shoulder. He glanced behind him to see the inner door opening, a small mob of surprised guards rushing through, and jumped.

It was a long fall, and the impact smashed against him like a hammer, knocking the breath from his lungs. He kept descending, slower now as a maw of water closed over him, fighting the urge to breathe. With what strength he had left, with muscles weak and burning, as occasional bullets hit the water and zipped through followed by tails of lazy bubbles, he broke the surface and gasped for breath.

"There he is!" someone shouted above him, and Corvo could see the gaggle of guards assembled at the lip of now raised drawbridge. Oil-locks were levelled, and Corvo kicked away as the water was stabbed and punctured by weapons fire. "Spread out, catch him before he can get away. Someone let the rest of the Watch now, get a cordon set up!"

Corvo dragged himself onto the shore, staggering upright. He limped to the grate as a few more gunshots echoed after him, but he was out of range of oil-locks, and all it took was one tug to have the grille falling down and open for him; someone had oiled and greased the hinges for him.

With the guards still shouting and milling behind him, Corvo Attano disappeared into the cool, dank darkness of the sewers.